Rhode Island Court Gives Lead Paint Jury Verdict the Brush-Off

Exposure to high levels of lead can cause mental retardation, kidney problems, seizures, coma, and death. Low levels of lead can cause behavior problems, learning disabilities, and diminished intelligence.

In its 4-0 decision Tuesday, the court said the state's 1999 lawsuit against the Lead Industries Association and Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC should have been dismissed at the outset.

Chief Justice Frank Williams wrote, "Our hearts go out to those children whose lives forever have been changed by the poisonous presence of lead. But, however grave the problem of lead poisoning is in Rhode Island, public nuisance law simply does not provide a remedy for this harm."

While lead paint was a public health problem in Rhode Island, the court said in its ruling, it is not the companies' responsibility to remediate it because they had no control over how the paint was used.

Old, peeling paint poses a risk of exposure to lead. (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)

The Supreme Court ruling overturns not only the 2006 jury verdict but a 2007 Rhode Island Superior Court decision upholding the verdict.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch said today that the court's decision affects "every Rhode Islander, every taxpayer, every parent and, especially, every child - who has been injured, is still threatened with injury today, or will be poisoned by lead in the future. This reversal is enormously disappointing, and I disagree with it in the strongest terms."

The state had asked that the companies spend at least $2.4 billion to inspect and clean hundreds of thousands of homes built before 1978 that it said were likely to contain lead paint.

The National Safety Council says leaded paint can be found in about two-thirds of homes built before 1940, half of homes built from 1940 to 1960, and a smaller number built from 1960 to 1978, when the federal government banned lead paint for indoor use.

"This case was litigated in the Superior Court for more than eight years," said Lynch. "Despite the multi-million dollar lead industry-funded defense waged by an army of more than 100 lawyers, my office proved to the satisfaction of a unanimous jury that the three defendants were liable for the public nuisance that their products created in Rhode Island."

"Those products poisoned our infants and children - and continue to poison our infants and children - while bringing great profits to the companies that made and sold them," Lynch said.

"The Supreme Court ruled that these defendants do not have to clean up the mess they have made," he said. "I find this legally and fundamentally wrong."

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, filed the state's first lawsuit against lead paint manufacturers during his tenure as Rhode Island Attorney General.

Whitehouse said Tuesday, "There is no doubt that lead paint manufactured by these companies caused grave harm to thousands of Rhode Island children. It has for years been Rhode Island's worst public health problem for children. The court's decision to overturn a jury verdict holding the paint manufacturers who caused this problem accountable is deeply disappointing to me and to the many people who worked hard for years to remedy this harm."

Rhode Island was the first state to sue over the harms of lead paint, and when the jury verdict came down in 2006, the Childhood Lead Action Project was pleased.

"The lead industry knowingly poisoned America's children - particularly poor and minority children," the advocacy group said at the time. "It was pure greed and a callous disregard for the well-being of children that the industry continued to use lead pigment in paint."

"While the industry marketed lead-free paint to the European community and protected farm animals from the dangers of lead, children in the United States continued to be exposed to lead-based paint - in their cribs, their toys and in their homes," the group said.

The state's four year cleanup plan would have required the companies to remove or permanently enclose lead paint from homes built before 1980, as well as elementary schools, playgrounds and child care centers.

Lawyers for the state said lead paint remains in an estimated 240,000 properties.

Whitehouse said, "Today’s decision makes abatement and treatment efforts the responsibility of Rhode Island families and taxpayers alone, letting the companies who caused this off the hook."

Lead paint manufacturers also have been sued in New Jersey, Missouri and Wisconsin, but so far no case has succeeded. Lawsuits are still before the courts in Ohio and California.

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